


The open door.

by lavvyan



Category: Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft, Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, BAMF Danny "Danno" Williams, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Horror, I Don't Even Know, Inspired by Fanfiction, Lovecraftian, M/M, Mangled Poe, Steve McGarrett Needs a Hug, well I mean kinda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-07 07:24:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19204654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavvyan/pseuds/lavvyan
Summary: He knows the stories, but he still gets up to look. Just once; just to see what... just to see. And through the blackout curtain of night and rain, through the watercolor light that sloshes against the glass panes of his kitchen door, the door that leads outside and to the ocean’s murky depths, the door that’s standing lonely between him and the water... he does see.He sees, faintly, and wishes he didn’t.Steve loves the ocean. Maybe it loves him a little too much in return.





	The open door.

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The sea; the depths. The fear.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16479473) by [Sealie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sealie/pseuds/Sealie). 



> This story is a response, kind of, to Sealie’s The sea; the depths. The fear. You don’t _have_ to go and read that one first, but I highly recommend it (barely 1.6K words, if you have the time?). 
> 
> 1\. According to Wikiquote, “hawawa ka heenalu, hai ka papa” means “The awkward person breaks the board in riding on the surf.” So basically if you have no idea how to do something, chances are you’ll fail, which struck me as a very Chin thing to say. Especially if it’s to Kono.
> 
> 2\. I don’t know where exactly this fits in the timeline, but it’s probably set somewhere around season 4. Knowledge of Steve’s mum’s not-as-dead-as-expected status is implied, anyway, but Charlie isn’t romping through their lives. The story references 1.23 (the one with the sarin thing) and 2.10 (the one with North Korea) and contains a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Doris McGarrett’s scheming ways, but otherwise contains no spoilers. I think.
> 
> 3\. This has been edited but not beta-read, so concrit is welcome (as it always is). The narrative style is a bit of an experiment, so if you need your grammar to be proper and view semicolons as a means of last resort, do yourself a favor and move on. 
> 
> 4\. **Heed the tags, please!** Also, the end notes contain spoilers for the story, so maybe don't read those first.

_The old sailors tell stories. They speak of the depths where the unknown hands lie. Steve has his own stories. The unknown and knowing depths of a shark’s dead eyes in dark waters best not spoken of. The shark swims past him, rough skin scraping against Steve’s torso as he hangs in the water waiting for death._

_His stories are not as terrifying as the old sailors‘ stories: the knocking on the outside of a claustrophobic submarine at two thousand metres, and the voices, always voices, sibilant in the depths._

_All the sailors – the old ones – have stories. The young sailors are dead._

\- The sea; the depths. The fear. By Sealie.

_Honestly, with that intro, I was sort of expecting Steve to be some kind of mer!zombie or something._

\- The author of this story, to Sealie, who responded by basically declaring that The Knocking gets everyone.

Sooner or later

       The Knocking

Will come.

~~~~~

(15)

It always comes after dark.

When the rain hammers down from the sky like God is pounding his fist on the Earth, heavy and relentless. When the night’s so deep you might drown in it. When the lights inside the house seem watery and frail and all the rooms feel far too small.

That’s when the scratching starts.

It’s slight but dissonant, a sideways-scraping sound to drag across the rain’s vertical apocalypse. Always at the kitchen door, never at the front. Nearer to the ocean, Steve thinks, every time, and every time he curses himself for thinking it.

He knows the stories. Of monsters, shadows, specters in the dark. Of creatures from the unknown deep heaving themselves up on the shore, there to collect the ocean’s due. Of sailors disappearing, paying blood to satisfy their curiosity.

He knows the stories, but he still gets up to look. Just once; just to see what... just to see. And through the blackout curtain of night and rain, through the watercolor light that sloshes against the glass panes of his kitchen door, the door that leads outside and to the ocean’s murky depths, the door that’s standing lonely between him and the water... he does see.

He sees, faintly, and wishes he didn’t.

If the thing lay still, he might mistake it for a heap of kelp. But it’s not lying still; it’s moving, writhing, shapeless-but-not, half-formed limbs rising and falling back into the horrid, waist-high mass as it taps and pulses against the door. As it scratches, unrelenting, searching blindly for a way inside.

And Steve... watches. Standing in his parents‘ house, in the doorway between his mother’s living room and his father’s kitchen, breath caught and mouth dry, he watches, stares, fingers clenched around his useless gun. He tries to swallow, knows somehow that if he shoots? All he’ll do is break the glass.

He inhales once, twice, jerky breaths that hold no air, don’t help at all as he steps forward, into the kitchen, toward the door. Like through molasses he moves, through mire, through rock. His hand lifts up and reaches out, pauses on the doorknob; metal digs into his palm.

The thing, the _Thing_ outside holds still. Oily iridescence gleams, reflects the light in sickly shimmers. Leafy feelers shudder on the glass; he can’t tell if they’re gray or brown or dying green. It has no eyes and yet it watches, contemplates him to the point of breaking: alien in its fathomless regard, colder than the deepest current. It watches, and then it jerks, bone-pale hooks protruding from its limbs. Scratching on the kitchen door.

Steve’s fingers move.

The lock engages with a click.

Stepping back is even harder than moving forward was, but he does it. Pulls his hand from the doorknob; drags his feet across the tiles. Retreats, although his heartbeat pounds out no, don’t-move, don’t-turn, don’t-go.

He moves, turns, goes; sits on his mother’s couch and spends the night straight-backed and silent, breathing slowly, waiting for the glass to break.

~~~~

(14)

He faintly remembers a day on the beach, his memory a mess of sun and sand and feeling safe, though at that age he can’t have had a sense of danger. Not a real one, anyway.

He remembers playing in the surf, using both hands to thrust the sea into the sky, laughing at the sparkling droplets as they came back down.

Don’t get sand into your eyes, honey, Aunt Deb – a visit? – told him, standing on the shore and smiling. Did he dash up to her and hug her waist, dripping water on her toes? He must have. If not that day then sometime else, wet cheek impressing a child’s love on her dry swimsuit before he ran back to the splashing waves.

Let him, Dad said, laughing. That boy’s got the ocean in his blood.

Mum, though, she said nothing, simply watched him in that way she had, serious and self-contained.

And didn’t something else watch him as well? Didn’t he feel it, out there where the water was cold, where he wasn’t yet allowed to go?

He might have.

Then Mary stumbled over her bucket, a mental snapshot of red plastic and a toddler’s wailing, and the rest of the day dissolves into unknowing.

~~~~

(13)

He thinks he remembers his mother telling him, don’t open the door. Never open the door, Stevie, even if you really want to.

But she probably said no such thing.

~~~~

(12)

On sunny days, if Steve is lucky, Danny comes over.

On sunny days, they sit some distance from the water’s edge, on the chairs that used to belong to his parents first and then his father, and that now belong to him. Two chairs for two people. Along with the chairs, Steve supplies the beer or maybe Danny does, and they sit and talk about nothing and everything, crazy stories about basic training and the dumbest criminals Danny ever had the pleasure to arrest. Growing up on an island and why New Jersey is infinitely superior to New York. The day Steve’s mother died. The night Danny’s uncle didn’t come home from his shift at the fire station. They talk and they drink and sometimes they laugh, sometimes they don’t, but always Steve feels a little more settled. A little warmer. Less alone.

On sunny days, he glances over at his partner, rose-gold sunset in Danny’s hair like a beacon, a promise of safe harbor in the skin-warm allure of Danny’s frame. Steve looks at Danny, shining in his confidence, unaware of things the rain can bring, and thinks, yes, this one. Him.

~~~

(11)

Not yet, though.

Not now.

~~~

(10)

Maybe he should sell the house. It’s seaside property; even after giving Mary her share, he could probably buy a smallish bungalow inland. Buy one for Danny, too, instead of those apartments he keeps renting. Move them in together, even, though they’d drive each other nuts. Still, he could do it. Move out, get away, sleep through the stormiest of nights.

Feel safe.

But Steve grew up here. Mary, too. Their father died here, for god’s sake. And if someone else moved in, they might not know to keep the back door shut. They might hear scratching and not see the shape, and out of the dark and through the open door death would lash out, finally fed.

He can’t let that happen. Can’t leave what has become his sentinel post.

He’ll stay, and keep the lights on, and the door shut.

~~~

(9)

Sometimes, when Danny rants, he says that Steve’s afraid of nothing. Calls it a death wish, claims that Steve doesn’t think before doing, yells at Steve to _listen,_ damn it, will you stop and listen for a second? Huh?

Steve has listened.

He listened to the cops who told him that his mum was dead, killed in an accident, never coming home. Never teaching him and Dad how to change a fan belt. Never grading those papers on her desk.

He listened to gunfire as he left Freddy behind. His best friend, put in second place behind the mission, with a fiancée he’d never marry and a baby he would not see born.

Steve listened to Dad getting shot in the head and to Danny’s lungs making that awful wheezing sound and to Jenna telling him she’s sorry, she had to, she’s so sorry.

He's listened to that sound, that awful, wicked scratching sound, scrape its counterpoint across the rain. Listened, helpless and afraid of it.

God, is he afraid of it.

~~~

(8)

The _Thing_ never speaks. No voice sounds out of the darkness, sibilant and strange. No words in tongues Steve doesn’t know are pressed against the backdoor’s glass. No hum, no singing, no enticement. Just the scratching, with no rhythm to discern.

He knows it’s calling to him, all the same.

He asked Joe once, when they were drunk, about the stories sailors tell. About those tales of Elder Gods and creatures from the deep, of knocks on diving submarines and sirens in the waves.

Of strange shapes crawling from the sea and scratching on back doors.

Is there a way to kill them, Steve wanted to know.

Joe was silent for a long time, staring into his beer as if it held unfathomable depths. When he spoke, his voice was sober.

They’re just stories, he said, and, no, hey, listen! Those are stories old men tell to make themselves more interesting. And even if they weren’t...

He set his beer glass to his lips and drained the whole thing in one go.

If they were not, he said, I don’t think something human-made can kill them. I think they don’t die the way we understand the word, and, Steve. Remember there are worse things they can do to you than take your life.

Like what, Steve asked, but Joe just shook his head and drank until the barman threw them out.

~~~

(7)

Danny arrives in sunshine, like to like, but rainclouds quickly darken the horizon; no sitting on the beach today. By the time they’ve eaten their pizzas, night has fallen and Danny, who’s used to decent Jersey streetlights, he says, would have to drive through a horizontal torrent just to get to the next street corner.

I can drive you, Steve offers.

How uncommonly generous of you, Danny says, and Steve almost laughs because he’s not being generous; he couldn’t be further from generous; he just wants Danny out of the house and safe before—

A soft scritch, near-inaudible, sneaks through the kitchen doorway.

You got mice, Danny asks, his eyebrows raised.

No, says Steve, but already the sound comes again. Scratch-scratch, insidiously harmless, like some doe-eyed creature left to fend for itself in the percussive rain.

Danny makes a move as if to step into the kitchen. Steve all but lunges forward, barely manages to keep his grip on Danny’s wrist a manacle and not a vise.

Don’t, he snaps, too harshly, heartbeat going nuts, don’t-move, don’t-turn, don’t-go, don’t-look, don’t-look-don’t-look-don’t- _look._ Don’t open the door.

Could be an animal.

It’s not.

Danny’s looking at him full-on now, all his attention turned to Steve. Everything a clue: Steve’s voice, his grip, the salt-sweat on his palm, the way Steve’s face feels drained of blood. Everything a puzzle piece and Danny, oh, so good at puzzling.

Do you want me to go, he asks with a sloppy finger gun aiming toward the kitchen, shoot the... whatever’s out there that’s got you spooked?

No, Steve says; you can’t, he says, you... Danny.

And when Danny keeps pointing his finger gun, Steve tells him, it’s older than guns, okay?

The sentence sounds stupid out loud, ludicrous even, and it doesn’t make the slightest sense. But it’s the truth. Whatever’s out there, mocking him with feeble scratches that barely sound alive, is older than guns, older than humanity, and if they both emptied their clips into the gloopy, writhing, conniving mess, they wouldn’t change this fact. So Steve says it again:

It’s older than guns.

Danny drops his hand. He takes a step back, further into the living room, thank God. Steve's grip around his wrist loosens, opens, falls away. Steve braces himself for a rant, a demand for explanation, but Danny just looks at him. Looks at him and tilts his head and makes that little humming noise that means he's come to a conclusion.

And then he asks, like this is normal, like he’s asking for the time... Danny asks, is it older than a grenade?

Steve stares at him, mouth fallen open.

Just asking, Danny says and shrugs.

You don't believe me, Steve says, sagging, feeling something like relief. If Danny won't believe him then he won't be curious, and Steve knows an uncaring Danny can be safely kept away. A Danny who is curious—

Another mocking scratch, not quite as feeble as the ones before.

I believe there's something, Danny says, his words carefully measured, slow. But in addition, I believe you'll break my wrist if I go look, so I'm indulging you for now.

Danny, Steve says, tired, scared – yes, he'll admit it – and annoyed.

I'm guessing you won't let me leave right now, Danny says, and Steve nods. Danny nods too and walks back over to the couch, where he sits down.

Let's find a game, he says, false-brightly, like he's talking to a child.

Steve sits down next to him, handing over the remote. Paying no attention to whatever Danny settles on, he listens instead. Sits up straight and keeps his guard, more terrified than ever. If _It_ gets in while Danny's here... if it gets past Steve...

He feels sick.

To have that light snuffed out would be like ripping a fixed star out of the sky. Unthinkable, and Steve won't let it, can't let it, would never let that happen.

And what would you do, _It_ asks, in its ceaseless scritch-scratching at the door.

He doesn't know.

God help him, he has no idea.

~~

(6)

Steve swims.

He's a Navy SEAL with a house on the beach, so of course he swims. It's his one act of defiance, laying claim to territory that is his because he says it is. Because it always was, from the day Mum taught him how to keep himself afloat. The house, the beach, the sea: all part of him in ways he can't explain, but nowhere does he feel himself the way he does inside the ocean.

Steve swims, because he can’t _not_ swim.

Sometimes, he feels _It_ keeping pace below him in the colder depths. Tracking him; terrible interest pinging him like grotesque echo location.

On his better days, he wills it to come up and pull him in. A fight to the death surrounded by water, that's how he always thought he'd end. That's why bullets don't scare him as long as they're aimed exclusively in his direction. He's not invincible, he knows, but death? Won't come for him from land.

On bleaker days, he swims on grimly, plows through the waves with his jaw clenched tight. Wishes all the ocean held were fish and whales and other creatures saner than this. Wishes he were alone the way he sometimes feels he's always been. Just him and the sea, one looking to belong and the other uncaring of things so desperately inconsequential.

Whatever his mood, he swims unhindered, each return to the shore a triumph as solid and lasting as ocean foam.

~~

(5)

Danny comes over.

It's raining, has been all day, but Danny comes over.

I thought you might want the company, he says. Some help taking care of a few things.

Standing with his hip cocked and his hands in his pockets, smirking faintly, ready to take on the world. A damp ray of sunshine in the middle of Steve's living room.

Danny, Steve says, stops, sighs. Wavers, as he often does, between exasperation and affection, the stubborn kind that curled around Steve’s sternum on the very day they met.

Okay, fine, Danny says. He holds up his hands and mimes surrender, no taking care of things. But I want a beer before I go home.

Sure, Steve drawls, exasperation winning out, any other requests?

Some food would be nice.

Steve rolls his eyes but goes to fetch the beer and some takeout menus. If Danny thinks he’s being sneaky, they can never send him undercover again. But the rain all day was light, a series of showers, nothing more.

Nothing to lure out things that have no business being on land.

They end up having Indian – which Danny doesn’t want to try at first, but likes fine after the first few bites – and two beers each. It’s a nice evening. Steve thoughtfully recounts the grossest things he’s ever eaten, to which Danny alternately laughs and chokes and declares him to be full of shit.

Well, there was that time in… but that’s classified, Steve says, smirking.

Full of it, Danny repeats, and snags the last of the naan.

Steve does feel full, and he suspects that Danny knows it. He suspects that this, more than anything, certainly more than some rainy mystery, is what brought Danny here tonight: he likes making Steve feel good. Like he belongs. Beyond the teasing, beyond the bluster, Danny just likes Steve to know that Danny’s got his back.

If Steve had to describe how much that means to him, he wouldn’t know where to start.

When they both can’t keep themselves from yawning, Steve walks Danny to the door. He’s expecting Danny to powerwalk straight through the drizzle and to his car, but Danny pauses, turns, and looks him over.

Okay, so, stop me if you don’t want this, he says, and—

And Steve’s breath catches in his throat before Danny’s leaned all the way up. Closing his eyes, he sways forward to meet Danny halfway, fingers curling against Danny’s hip as Danny’s mouth finds his. Danny’s lips are soft, their touch almost delicate; a question without demand. Steve takes care to answer just as softly, to linger rather than pull away. Danny’s hands are his reward, one on the small of his back and one on the side of his neck, warm, familiar, and so welcome.

They stand there, kissing, rainsounds fading, and for a moment, Steve lets himself drift on a tide of yes and this and, _please_ ; lets himself be buoyed by the feeling of Danny in his arms, strong enough to carry them both for a while, real enough to rely on. For a moment, the pleased little noise in the back of Danny’s throat and his own shaky breathing are the only sounds he hears.

For one perfect moment, every drowning part of him is safe.

~~

(4)

And yet he can’t find sleep that night.

His thoughts refuse to stop their spinning, old sailors’ stories filling up his head. Monstrous waves and ghost ships, strange lights that guide a ship off course, never to be seen again. Kraken and sirens and Davy Jones; deeper monsters that have no name. Cities far beneath the waves: R’lyeh and Y’ha-nthlei and Ahu-Y’hloa, many-columned and corpsen. Horrors indescribable in human words. Dead-eyed men and women who won’t talk about what they have seen.

And one creature, bubbling with foul life, its rotting limbs playing their disjointed symphony on Steve’s door.

He wonders, for the first time _lets_ himself wonder, if he really does have the ocean in his blood, if that’s why _It_ is drawn to him. If it all comes down to genetics, inescapable and simple. His mother’s fucking legacy, like all the other deaths and secrets that bob around her, stinking flotsam.

Maybe that is why she left.

~

(3)

On a quiet day at headquarters, Steve spins himself a story. About how, soon, maybe next year, maybe next _week_ , he’ll take Danny and Grace and move to the mainland. Somewhere far from the sea or any large body of water. Somewhere bone-dry. Arizona, maybe. Phoenix, maybe.

There’ll be sports for Danny and Arizona State for Grace’s graduation. Another task force for Steve, maybe. New lives, same as their old ones, except for the lack of sea.

Steve smiles down at the tech table, uncaring of Chin’s amused huff next to him. He can almost see Danny’s eyeroll when Grace and Steve both call him Danno, the badly-hidden pleasure at a nickname used like a stamp of ownership, their claim on him and his on them. Can imagine himself and Gracie going out to run, to hike, to generally explore the area. They’ll draw their circles wide and wider, but always return home. Always drifting back to Danny, their five-foot-five lighthouse far away from any shore.

Five-foot-six, if you believe Danny, but Steve has seen his file.

His grin slips off his face when Kono all but bursts into the main area, dripping wet and scowling.

Tourists, she huffs at Chin’s questioning look. Give them one tiny deluge and it’s like they never learned to drive.

Hawawa ka heenalu, hai ka papa, Chin says philosophically, and accepts her punch to his shoulder as his due.

Steve’s stomach dropped at ‘deluge.’ He swallows, offers a comment about the spirit of Aloha, earns his own punch to the arm.

The night will be bad. He can feel it, queasiness roiling in his gut like restless waves, murky and tumultuous. At least Danny’s in New Jersey, a different shore entirely.

At least he’s safe.

~

(2)

That night, as he sits on the couch and stares at the wall, a line gets stuck inside his head,

       (some timeless Thing, unceasing, scratching, scratching at his kitchen door)

refusing to be driven off.

He tries to laugh about it, chokes, blows out a breath that carries his eroded mirth. His shoulders shake: with fear, with rage, with badly-dammed aggression.

Maybe he should go back there, into the kitchen, to the door.

Maybe he should step outside, into the rain,

       ( _scratching_ ,)

and see, finally see, what it is, why it’s there, what the hell it _wants_ from him.

Maybe he should try Danny’s plan with the grenade.

Maybe he should get up, stand his ground, put an end to this one way or another and free himself of this constant, endless torture.

Maybe.

       (Quoth the creature, Nevermore.)

~

(1)

Mind if I crash, Danny asks.

It's a different storm that tugs at Steve's house, rattles at the windows. Pelts the roof with rain like nails, nothing soft about the sound.

Danny, Steve says. Helpless. Loathe to send him out into the gale, terrified to keep him there inside the house.

Something’s calling, out there in the dark. Steve reaches without thought, hand closing around Danny's forearm, golden life beneath his grip. Warm against his clammy skin. Steve stands, breathes too fast, knows he should let go.

He should let go.

I won’t open the door, Danny promises.

That’s what Steve will remember, later.

That Danny promised.

Come on, Danny says, let's go upstairs.

He moves toward the stairs and Steve follows in his wake, can't help it, still clutching Danny like a lifeline.

Is something scritching at the door?

Come on, Danny says, and Steve goes. Up the stairs and into the bedroom. Across the room and into bed. Open door, gun on the bedside table, attention on the clattering rain.

On the way Danny moves, the lack of noise downstairs, the way movement ripples underneath the blood-hot surface of Danny's skin. On the heartbeat fluttering at Danny's throat, on the, on the door, on Danny, _Danny_ , spreading his fire into Steve, lighting him up like a flare.

Let me take care of you, Danny murmurs, and Steve...

Steve lets go.

~

He wakes up, ages later, reaching fingers touching emptiness beside him.

Danny, he mutters, and again, Danny?

Persistent silence, looseness draining out of him with every silent inhalation.

No storm. No rain.

No Danny.

Just the usual insomnia, Steve figures, _forces_ himself to figure. Danny is downstairs with the tv on low, or in the bathroom across the hall, or in the kitchen for a glass of water. Somewhere around, and anyway the rain has stopped.

Steve breathes in the darkness, finds his mouth dry.

Better get something to drink.

He slips into his boxers, through the door, down the stairs. Quiet feet on night-chilled wood. The tv is dark, as is the kitchen. Salt-smell prickles on Steve's skin, makes the fine hairs rise in the cool breeze as he turns on the kitchen light.

The door to the lanai is open.

Steve sways, croaks something that is not a name, staggers forward without knowing how. Grabs the doorframe, clutches, stills.

Danny's outside.

Danny's outside, and he's whole, and he's—

He's—

Crouched over a formless shape, hands buried in a heap of

       (kelp)

something, disappearing in the mass. His forearm shifts and there are his fingers, wrapping around limp protrusions, pulling, tearing, dripping gore.

Steve's breath shudders out of him, Danny's name a whimper on his lips. He can't turn, can't move, can't walk away.

Danny turns his head, jaw working, _chewing._ One corner of his dark-smeared mouth turns up.

His eyes glow strangely in the light from Steve’s kitchen.

Like beacons.

.

**Author's Note:**

> And the Sailor, caught, is standing there beyond the doorway, standing  
> Like a stone, but breathing, bending to the call he feared before;  
> Though his mind is quietly screaming that he must be dreaming, _dreaming_  
>  That his partner still is feeding on some creature’s dripping core;  
> Yet he’s steered, commanded – gently! – by the beacon on the shore  
>        T’ward the lights – for evermore.


End file.
